EYES AROUND: Deviance as the new norm

Teresa Martin

Friday

Jan 29, 2010 at 2:00 AM

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 When something passes through my world multiple times, I tend to take it as a sign that I should take a look at it. And so it is that we visit DeviantArt. DeviantArt (www.deviantart.com) is a combination art gallery/social networking site.

When something passes through my world multiple times, I tend to take it as a sign that I should take a look at it. And so it is that we visit DeviantArt. DeviantArt (www.deviantart.com) is a combination art gallery/social networking site. Denizens of Deviant appear to be young, trendy, hip, and cutting edge. There are also a lot of them. The site claims visits from two million people a day, with an artwork collection over 80 million items in 2,500 categories, including street art, traditional art, Manga, poetry, and video.

As astute readers can guess, I’ve never been exactly hip and trendy at any age and so had never had a reason to visit a hip and trendy online community. Heck, I think they would have tossed me out for being so boring! But when I went looking for some art talent, every young artist seemed to point to a portfolio on Deviant. Forget Facebook - if you're a young aspiring artist Deviant is your world.

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

Frank Zappa

Deviant quotes music's mad scientist Mr. Zappa as its inspiration. The site was founded in 2000 by a trio of young entrepreneurs, Scott Jarkoff, Matt Stephens and Angelo Sotira. Within a few years the group had the usual young Internet-startup-founder parting of ways, the inevitable court case, and the closed record ambiguity. Once the dust settled, 28-year-old Sotira ended up running the show.

Part of the draw is the galleries, where you can show your work, combined with the fact that the majority of the work is high quality and created by people with serious art aspirations.

Another part is the ability to write critiques of others’ work and to have ongoing discussion and debates about your own work. Along with this, you also have the ability compile collections of galleries and share your collections.

The result feels a bit like being in art school portfolio critique class, in an ongoing 24-7 sort of space with a whole bunch of colleagues. Want to find a reference on how to best sketch the gait of felines, or a look at a palette for skin tones? It's here. And, yes, there is “adult” art in the mix, but that's one category of the working artist and is identified as such.

DeviantArt isn’t new and it isn’t news. In fact, it is entering its 10th year.

What’s interesting to me about it is this: there’s a massive community out there with a shared passion for art that is talking amongst itself and throwing off significant advertising revenue. And unless you have a reason to seek out that world, you don’t even know it is there.

I didn't know it was there. Did you know there are 11 million artists or artists-wanna-bes who are members of this community?

According to a September report from media monitor The Nielsen Company, online advertising spending on the top social network and blogging sites increased 119 percent over the past year. In a month-to-month comparison, it rose from approximately $49 million in August 2008 to approximately $108 million in August 2009 - and that's with a roaring recession going on.

Meanwhile, the share of the advertising spending pie put into these sites has doubled, from 7 percent of online ad spending in 2008 to 15 percent in 2009. Social networks are the place to be and to be seen.

Another advertising tracking group, the Reston Va.-based comScore Ad Metrix, also reported in September that more than 20 percent of online ads are within social network environments.

Its report focused on June 2009 activity in its analysis. It ranked AT&T as the top display advertiser on social networking sites in June with more than two billion ad impressions, which accounted for 30 percent of the company’s total number of display ads delivered during the month.

That’s a lot of data to get your mind around, but the bottom line is this: when AT&T wants to reach out and touch someone, it is going to use social media site advertising.

And, oh yeah, DeviantArt delivers some 204 million ad impressions per month, putting it in the top grouping of social networking sites at comScore. Deviant ranked #10 in June. MySpace and Facebook were, of course, numbers one and two.

It seems that the deviation from the norm has become the new norm.

Heck, social media is a whole industry now, with its own tradeshows, pundits, and consultants. It is studied, analyzed, and probably even taught in school.

It is no suprise that art gathers online, that it talks to itself there, that it shares galleries there. And no less surprising that the market maker DeviantArt also profits from it. It is an age-old equation migrated to the digital form.

Is this deviance? I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s a good thing to have around.

I love that so many people are making art, sharing art, and – most important – are passionate about art in all of its forms.

And I love that this ever-flexing medium of digital communication is creating a new norm over and over again to make all these things possible.

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